Part of Asahi Group Holdings, one of the world’s leading beverage companies, headquartered in Japan, CUB combine their rich history with market-leading insights and expertise to delight their customers and consumers.
“We bring enjoyment and excitement to everyday life with our portfolio of iconic, much-loved beverage brands and innovative, new-to-market products some of which we showcased at the recent Foodbuy event in Sydney.”
Asahi Group Holdings made its first acquisition in Oceania in 2009, with the purchase of Schweppes Australia. Over the next decade, Asahi invested and evolved its operations in the region. In 2020, they welcomed Carlton & United Breweries to the Asahi Beverages family, expanding their range of great-tasting beverages with the addition of some of Australia’s most popular and recognisable beer brands. In 2021, they welcomed premium fresh coffee business Allpress Espresso to the family and today, they employ more than 3800 people across Australia and New Zealand, with significant manufacturing facilities, sales and marketing teams in both countries.
Our Innovation Philosophy
The beverage landscape is rapidly changing; consumers have so many choices these days and their repertoires are expanding and evolving more than ever before.
“Our success is built around constantly evolving to meet our consumers’ and customers’ needs for both today and tomorrow.”
Their extensive innovation plan centres around providing consumers with refreshing new flavours and experiences from large-scale brands consumers know and love, and from new brands they can discover and explore, either in pack format or in Draught. This philosophy applies not just to the engine room of beer, but across a multitude of other beverage categories that unlock more sales and occasions, recruiting additional consumers through contemporised and diverse offerings.
From an ‘On Premise’ perspective, they have seen a real surge in the ‘easy-to-drink, more ‘sessionable’ styles within the craft and contemporary beer segments along with significant momentum in the ‘Beyond Beer’ segment, led largely by the explosion in Ginger Beer, Ready-To-Drink Cocktails and Premix offerings.
“Some of our latest product launches to market, which excitingly will be filtering across the Foodbuy network, include; Balter Cerveza (a Mexican style lager 4.0%), Great Northern Ginger Beer 4.0%, Brookvale Union Vodka Lemon Squash 6.0% & Hard Solo Alcoholic Lemon 4.5%…just to name a few!”
Of course, they have also witnessed a continued interest in the lower & non-alcoholic segment with big international brands such as Peroni Nastro Zero and Asahi Super Dry Zero leading the charge along with recent craft representation from 4 Pines Ultra Low 0.5% and Pirate Life Ultra Low 0.5%.
“We are confident that with our extensive innovation pipeline, informed by consumer insights, gathered both locally here in Australia and from overseas markets, we are well positioned to ensure we are bringing products that your customers will love to drink!”
WorldFirst™ and Focus on Sustainability
The Asahi business is committed to minimising its impact on the environment. Indeed, recently announced the brewing of their 50 millionth beer using the power of the sun, having installed 4,000 solar panels on the roof of their Abbotsford Brewery in Victoria.
They also have several other brewery or manufacturing sites with solar-powered enablement, helping drive and deliver a robust and meaningful sustainability agenda such as the Solar farm at Karadoc, Victoria (pictured to the right).
“We are using our significant scale to deliver positive change through operations and partnerships across our supply chain and have set a number of targeted goals to drive positive climate action. In conjunction with our JV partners, we have created a world-class recycling facility in Albury and currently are building another rPET facility in Melbourne, to really accelerate this agenda.”
Key sustainability targets:
Source 100% of our purchased electricity from renewable sources by 2025
Reduce Scope 1&2 CO2* emissions in our operations by 50% by 2025
Reduce Scope 3 CO2* emissions across our entire supply chain by 30% by 2030
Reach net zero CO2 emissions by 2050.*
*Scope 1 emissions are direct emissions from owned sources, Scope 2 covers indirect emissions such as purchased electricity, heat and steam, and Scope 3 includes all other indirect emissions in our value chain.
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WorldFirst™ and Focus on Sustainability